Reading noir and Lacan together can establish a structural corollary between the function of the signifier 'noir' in film criticism and the retroactive function of the point de capiton in Lacan's theory of language. Furthermore, at a narrative level, the function of the point de capiton can also be found in the retroactive constructions of film noir flashbacks. It is therefore possible to say that a retroactive 'noir temporality' is also the temporality of the (...) Symbolic order. This article explores the way in which the signifier 'noir' enables the analysis of a certain type of 1940s Hollywood film, and how a noir film such as Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) is concerned with the retroactive production of knowledge through narrative structure. (shrink)

Introduction -- Trapped by oneself in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the past -- "A deliberate, intentional fool" in Orson Welles's The lady from Shanghai -- Sexual agency in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street -- "Why didn't you shoot again, baby?": concluding remarks.

The Philosophy of Film Noir explores philosophical themes and ideas inherent in classic noir and neo-noir films, establishing connections to diverse thinkers ...

Human agency is typically thought of as intentional, purposeful, reflective and, in many cases, autonomous. This paper discusses human agency that is compromised in some of these respects, and actions that are actions only in a qualified sense. The object of study is the agency of the leading character, Jeff, in the film noir Out of the Past, and Elizabeth Anscombe’s Intention is the primary source in analyzing Jeff’s behavior.Two excerpts from the film are presented and analyzed. (...) The analysis of the first excerpt reveals agency that is merely weakly intentional; that is lacking in purposiveness and which displays ambivalence. Anscombe’s example of the man pumping water helps us see that Jeff’s actions are only intentional under some, basic, descriptions; that there is no intention of the action. Jeff does not really know his way about and his actions are not sufficiently grounded in reason. This, it is argued, is largely because he is not the author of his own actions: he is thrown into a situation set up by someone else. He enters in medias res and feels forced to act although he has limited knowledge of the meaning or purpose of the full action in which he partakes. In Anscombian vocabulary, he lacks the first-person practical knowledge typical of intentional action.In the second episode, Jeff protects Kathie the femme fatale, even when knowing that she has killed a man, stolen money, lied to Jeff, and is trying to frame him for murder. It is argued, in dialogue with Anscombe and Stoutland, that this case may be understood in terms of a mental cause rather than as an intentional action: Jeff’s actions and neglect to act is motivated by his passion for Kathie, it blinds him from considering what is reasonable and right to do. (shrink)

Invoking key concepts from the philosophical writings of Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben, The Dark Interval examines an iconography of radical passivity and temporal rupture that recurs in film noir, while examining the emergence of a specific cinematic figure - the 'intervallic' noir protagonist exposed to the redemptive force of his or her own passion.

In the past two decades, African American filmmakers like Spike Lee have made significant contributions to the dialogue about race in the United States by adapting techniques from classic _film noir _to black American cinema. This book is the first to examine these artistic innovations in detail from a philosophical perspective informed by both cognitive film theory and critical race theory. Dan Flory explores the techniques and themes that are used in black _film noir _to orchestrate the (...) audience’s emotions of sympathy and empathy felt toward morally complex characters whom people might not typically find appealing in real life, such as thugs, drug dealers, or murderers. Using an approach that combines the cognitive insights of theorists like David Bordwell, Noël Carroll, and Murray Smith with the reflective Wittgensteinian methods for considering film employed by Stanley Cavell, Stephen Mulhall, and William Rothman, Flory shows how these films scrutinize the state of race in America, induce their viewers to do so as well, and illuminate the ways in which categories of race have defined and continue to direct much of our vision of the moral self and what counts as appropriate moral sensibility. (shrink)

In the past two decades, African American filmmakers like Spike Lee have made significant contributions to the dialogue about race in the United States by adapting techniques from classic _film noir _to black American cinema. This book is the first to examine these artistic innovations in detail from a philosophical perspective informed by both cognitive film theory and critical race theory. Dan Flory explores the techniques and themes that are used in black _film noir _to orchestrate the (...) audience’s emotions of sympathy and empathy felt toward morally complex characters whom people might not typically find appealing in real life, such as thugs, drug dealers, or murderers. Using an approach that combines the cognitive insights of theorists like David Bordwell, Noël Carroll, and Murray Smith with the reflective Wittgensteinian methods for considering film employed by Stanley Cavell, Stephen Mulhall, and William Rothman, Flory shows how these films scrutinize the state of race in America, induce their viewers to do so as well, and illuminate the ways in which categories of race have defined and continue to direct much of our vision of the moral self and what counts as appropriate moral sensibility. (shrink)

To the French critics who originally labelled certain films noir it seemed that a class of Hollywood products had gone darker during the war years – as though a dark filter had been placed over the lens. Films were not designed or marketed as noir, and retrospectively noir's status as a genre is still unsettled. Yet there is widespread interest today in experiencing diverse films as noir, and even in using a Noir Filter in Instagram (...) and video games. Pursuing the filter clue, the noir experience can be thought of as subjection to a dark filtering of narrative. Image filtering styles can help to resolve not only the puzzle of noir's quasi-genre status but also an issue of general interest in aesthetic experience. The use of image filters makes a distinctively powerful contribution to the experience of a work or genre, or to the cultural dominance of an aesthetic regime, due to the unobtrusive formative role it plays in the economy of experience. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the distinction between film gris and film noir, introduced by Jon Tuska in his 1984 book Dark Cinema, enhances our appreciation of the philosophical attributes of such films. For Tuska, there are important differences between a film gris and a film noir. While a film gris may have a number of noir attributes (a shadowy noir visual style, a gritty urban setting, cynical characters, etc.) a (...) genuine film noir is not merely a police procedural and must not have a happy ending, I will also argue that a film’s narrative perspective plays a vital role in determining whether its status is that of a film noir. I will make these arguments by examining a wide variety of films including The Maltese Falcon (1941), Out of the Past (1947), He Walks by Night (1948), The Narrow Margin (1952), Double Indemnity (1944), Repeat Performance (1947), and The Wrong Man (1956). (shrink)

This paper discusses the methods of the investigators in film noir. They are different than those employed by the classic detective of mystery and crime fiction, which involve observation, the collection of clues, logical inference, and are generally modeled on the methods of the scientist. I illuminate the methods of the noir investigator by comparing them to those applied by Ludwig Wittgenstein to philosophical problems. Both the noir investigator and Wittgenstein deal with problems that are intractable (...) to the methods of logic and science. Wittgenstein thought that philosophical problems could not be solved using these methods; I show that the problems that typically confront the noir investigator are similarly resistant to them. Wittgenstein and the noir investigator model alternative methods for solving epistemic problems and in doing so remind us of the limits of science and logic. (shrink)

Is genre film comparable to a thought experiment?Revising concepts of determinism and agency in three film noirs The philosophical approach of film genres, first popularized by authors like Stanley Cavell, allows to consider genre films as narrative variations as pertinent to philosophical discourse as can be a traditional thought experiment, since every question on the essence of a genre and every discussion related to its inner functions, its mechanisms and its themes, generate naturally a philosophical discourse on (...) the way a director uses filmic and narrative tools to transform his intentions into a specific system of meaning. This study adopts formalist and philosophical approaches to connect the narratives of the movies to the discourses it is prone to generate. The corpus draws on the ‘primitive scene' in three films noirs, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai et Criss Cross : the tragic meeting of an anti-hero with the woman who will be responsible of his fall. Indeed, the sequence showing this first meeting becomes an exercise in style where forerunning signs of the two protagonists' fall organize the writing and the mise-en-scene, and explicitly shows how questions of agency and determinism are intimately articulated to the narrative and formal frame of the movies. (shrink)

William Blake and film noir apparently had the same problem with the urban landscape. While Blake attempts to create a mental world within language that would give a new face of religion to offer comfort to the inhabitants of London, film noir in Los Angeles finds noise and nihilism in the absence of faith. Both struggle with Immanuel Kant, who claimed that reason actively makes the world worthwhile. Hickey and Boggs, a relatively obscure neo-noir movie (...) from 1972, represents the meaninglessness and noise of language, bereft of the religion of Blake and the reason of Kant. (shrink)

Filmphilosophie ist ein – im deutschsprachigen Raum noch junges – Spezialthema der Ästhetik. Der Chicagoer Philosoph Robert B. Pippin, ein international anerkannter Interpret Hegels und Nietzsches analysiert in seinen Filmbüchern – Hollywood Western and the American Myth und Fatalism in Film Noir – zwei zentrale Filmgenres und untersucht in seinen neuesten Forschungen das Kino der belgischen Brüder Dardenne. Im vorliegenden Band beschäftigen sich, nach einem Beitrag Pippins zu den Dardennes, zwölf Autorinnen und Autoren aus Europa, den USA und (...) Kanada mit Pippins Filmphilosophie: 1) allgemein mit dem Themenraum „Film und Philosophie“; 2) mit Lektüren des Western, u.a. mit der Darstellung des „American South“ in diesem Genre; 3) mit dem Film Noir, wobei Pippins Analysen mit den Interpretationen von Deleuze und Žižek verglichen werden, und eine der Schlüsselfiguren der Schwarzen Serie, die Femme Fatale, ausführlich fokussiert wird. Das Buch ist der weltweit erste Diskussionsband zur Pippinschen Filmphilosophie und von Interesse für die Disziplinen Philosophie, Amerikanistik, Filmwissenschaft, Cultural und Gender Studies. (shrink)

The possibility of a love strong enough to overcome the corruption and violence of the world of film noir is a promise that frequently seduces the protagonist, but it ultimately proves to be illusory—and often fatal. Many film noirs share three major elements with Veronica Mars: a corrupt world in which the story is set; a love interest; and protagonist who becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth whatever the costs. The centerpiece of Veronica Mars's transformation of the (...) film noir paradigm is making the noir detective a teenage girl. In film noir the inhabitants of a corrupt world attempt to free themselves from bad situations but find themselves doomed to fail. One of the most radical and interesting ways in which Veronica Mars reimagines the genre is by reversing the genders between the film noir's protagonist and its femme fatale. (shrink)

Film noir reflects the fatalistic themes and visual style of hard-boiled novelists and many émigré filmmakers in 1940s and 1950s America, emphasizing crime, alienation, and moral ambiguity. In The Philosophy of TV Noir, Steven M. Sanders and Aeon J. Skoble argue that the legacy of film noir classics such as The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Big Sleep is also found in episodic television from the mid-1950s to the present. In this first-of-its-kind collection, (...) contributors from philosophy, film studies, and literature raise fundamental questions about the human predicament, giving this unique volume its moral resonance and demonstrating why television noir deserves our attention. The introduction traces the development of TV noir and provides an overview and evaluation of the book's thirteen essays, each of which discusses an exemplary TV noir series. Realism, relativism, and integrity are discussed in essays on Dragnet, Naked City, The Fugitive, and Secret Agent. Existentialist themes of authenticity, nihilism, and the search for life's meaning are addressed in essays on Miami Vice, The Sopranos, Carnivale, and 24. The methods of crime scene investigation in The X-Files and CSI are examined, followed by an exploration of autonomy, selfhood, and interpretation in The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Millennium. With this focus on the philosophical dimensions of crime, espionage, and science fiction series, The Philosophy of TV Noir draws out the full implications of film noir and establishes TV noir as an art form in its own right. (shrink)

Introduction -- The dialectic's narrow margin: film noir between Adorno and Hegel -- On critical theory's dialectical dilemma -- a configuration pregnant with tension: Fritz Lang for critical theory -- Coda: the enjoyment of film in theory.

At the Intersection of High and Mass Culture analyses the contradictions and interaction between high and low art, with particular reference to Hollywood and European cinema. Written in the essayist, speculative tradition of Walter Benjamin and Theodore Adorno, this study also includes analyses of several key films of the 1980s. Tracing the boundaries of such genres as film noir, science fiction and melodrama, it demonstrates how these genres were radically expanded by such filmmakers as Neil Jordan, Chris Merker (...) and Georges Franju. This work also reflects on kitsch, the star system, racial and gender stereotypes, and the nature of audience participation. While defining the conditions under which the symbiotic relationship between high and mass culture can be cross-fertilising, this study stresses their inevitably contradictory characteristics. (shrink)

In the beginning was the night. All light, shapes, language, and subjective consciousness, as well as the world and art depicting them, emerged from this formless chaos. In fantasy, we seek to return to this original darkness. Particularly in literature, visual representations, and film, the night resiliently resurfaces from the margins of the knowable, acting as a stage and state of mind in which exceptional perceptions, discoveries, and decisions play out. Elisabeth Bronfen investigates the nocturnal spaces in which extraordinary (...) events unfold, and casts a critical eye into the darkness that enables the irrational exploration of desire, transformation, ecstasy, transgression, spiritual illumination, and moral choice. She begins with an analysis of classical myths depicting the creation of the world and then moves through night scenes in Shakespeare and Milton, Gothic novels and novellas, Hegel's romantic philosophy, and Freud's psychoanalysis. Bronfen also demonstrates how modern works of literature and film, particularly film noir, can convey that piece of night the modern subject carries within. From Mozart's "Queen of the Night" to Virginia Woolf 's oscillation between day and night, life and death, and chaos and aesthetic form, Bronfen renders something visible, conceivable, and comprehensible from the dark realms of the unknown. (shrink)

The belated genre classification, “film noir,” is a contested one, much more so than “Western” or “musical.”2 However, there is wide agreement that there were many stylistic conventions common to the new treatment of crime dramas prominent in the 1940s: grim urban settings, often very cramped interiors, predominantly night time scenes, and so-called “low key” lighting and unusual camera angles.3 But there were also important thematic elements in common.Two are especially interesting. First, noirs were almost always about crime, (...) usually murder, often cold-blooded, well-thought-out murder. Even more surprisingly, the larger social context for such deeds, the historical American world in which they take place, was itself just as bleak, amoral, and ugly as the individual deeds and the characters themselves. Secondly, and perhaps most distinctively, many films challenged, in sometimes startling ways, many of our most familiar assumptions about psychological explanation. In ways that seemed both mysterious and credible, characters who had been righteous, stable, and paragons of responsibility all their adult lives were seamlessly and quite believably transformed in a few seconds into reckless, dangerous, and even murderous types, all suggesting that anyone, in the right (or wrong) circumstances, was capable of almost anything, and that one’s own sincere avowals of basic principles could be ludicrously self-deceived.4 This last theme—that a virtuous character can be as much a matter of moral luck (of having avoided by mere chance the particular temptation that would reveal the fragility of one’s principles) as an individual accomplishment—is connected with an even larger philosophical issue. (shrink)